Thursday, June 28, 2007

My imaginary review of the iPhone

I was surprised when I received the call from Apple Marketing. They asked me to review the iPhone two weeks in advance. I thought they could not give a damn about open source and the largest mobile community of developers, but I was wrong. They wanted me to review the iPhone.

I spent the last two weeks with the iPhone. The bottom line is: it is an awesome device, too pricey for many, too slow for most, too closed for sure. But just right for me (a niche of one).

It is really small and light. The screen is fantastic. The virtual keyboard sucks, despite the marketing hype, because it does not have tactile feedback. If you got used to T9 on cell phones, this is immensely better, so just suck it up. If you got used to a BlackBerry, keep it because you will still be much more productive, but you will still look like the salesman that you are, even with a camera and an MP3 player.

Other reviewers probably live on the North Pole and do not sweat. I live in California and I do. The screen is greasy after the two weeks and I have to clean it once a day. But who cares? It is so cool to take it out in public that I am even happy to keep cleaning it. Yesterday, I was at a Starbucks and I took it off to clean it. Girls attacked me. If you are single and geek (not that I am), spend the night in front of an Apple store. It will pay off during the weekend.

I still do not get why I had to activate it by myself, instead of having someone nice doing it for me in the store. I am working for Steve Jobs for free and I should feel better. But, hey, I did it in the comfort of my home and I could buy it at an Apple store... So it must be good for me.

Not having third party apps on the iPhone is just insane. "The first kit for software developers that is not an SDK (software developer kit)!" said Steve Jobs during WWDC. Yep, it is called a browser... Hey, many will do their best to build web apps but I miss some of the ones I have on my Windows Mobile. Again, who cares? No girl ever was attracted to a BlackJack.

Being forced to sync it via cable is so Palm HotSync and last millennium... Man, I have wifi and cellular connectivity (albeit slow like my 56k modem), and I cannot sync it over the air with my Outlook or Thunderbird. I would love to see the address book of my old crappy cell phone on the iPhone. I would really need Funambol for it (stay tuned...).

When I was about done with my review, I received a call from Steve Jobs himself. I was shocked. He told me to stop writing dumb things about the iPhone and Apple. He made sure I was informed that he does not read my blog. Before hanging up, he screamed "wake up and go get yourself in line in front of one of our stores, or you are not going to get one, you idiot!!".

About Me

Fabrizio Capobianco is the Founder and CEO of TOK.tv, the company that lets you talk to your friends while watching TV. He also serves as President and Chairman of Funambol, which he founded in 2003 and grew to be the leading mobile open source company in the world.